Letters Read online

  At the hotel, once, you said “Don’t leave me,” and had tears in your eyes. Now I’m not sure I can leave. Aren’t you doing something with that?

  When I guessed what the doorbell meant, you sounded guilty. You sounded ashamed.

  Maggie—what are you up to?

  To Margaret Staats

  July 17, 1966 [Chicago]

  Today, Sunday, working away in my room, my only refuge, I have such a loving heartache for you I wonder how I bear it. It seems I am only postponing the natural, inevitable, desirable. To obey “advice.” It simply doesn’t seem right. What am I doing here, in this city! If we feel and mean what we say we had better be ready to do what’s necessary.

  To Margaret Staats

  August 3, 1966 [East Hampton]

  According to Wm. Blake the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom. This time it seems to have led elsewhere. We must have missed a turning. I wish I were there to give comfort and love. There’s plenty of both here.

  To Richard Stern

  August 11, 1966 East Hampton

  Dear Richard:

  Well, it is Louse Point, nothing can be done about it, and a very agreeable place notwithstanding the name. I thought Buffalo would be straight out of Lucian’s Satires, or Quevedo. I would have gone with chlorate of lime, or whatever it is they put in cesspools. But at least [John] Barth was decent; I would have thought so. It’s a pity he has to have the treatment, though. He’ll end up ridiculous. The Times review was very unfortunate for him, since after the great claims came a quoted paragraph that belonged in the wastepaper basket. All that Shakespearean tupping has a wicked backlash.

  Meantime I have been weaving my own modest little fabric of disasters. Though the surroundings be green and cheerful—white sands, scallop shells—you can hear the spiritual plutonium working up to fusion-heat.

  The younger generation is still dreaming of things to come. Lisa is a lovely child. She and Kate were charming together, going into a girl-huddle that lasted hours. As for Daniel, he goes into a corner and says he has found a parking space. Susan is fine. We see a lot of the [Harold] Rosenbergs. Harold now belongs to the Committee [on Social Thought]. Some action, for once.

  I get into NYC now and then to look after business and see my friends. Nobody, to quote Berryman, is missing. I asked Candida, but she had little or no information. When may we expect something from your pen? as they used to ask.

  I don’t know whether what is developing is the strength of the mature or the increased callousness of middle age.

  Love to all,

  John Barth’s novel Giles Goat-Boy had been favorably received in The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere.

  To Richard Stern

  [Postmarked East Hampton, N.Y., ? September 1966]

  Amigo—

  Still on the social barricades of East Hampton—day after Labor Day, the elite remains. Still in a Mexican standoff, as Peltz calls it. Preparing to go abroad two weeks. Have set aside most everything to write a memoir of D. Schwartz. Turns out to be quite a document. We’ll be here until Sept 15th. Miss your cheerful being.

  Love,

  Delmore Schwartz had died of a heart attack in July.

  To Margaret Staats

  October 11, 1966 [Chicago]

  Honey, I’m beginning to feel a little better. I can’t tell you how hurt I was. And I simply folded and slept a few days. It was convenient too. But I’m awake now. My brother-in-law, Janey’s husband, is in the hospital with another coronary. It’s doubtful that he’ll be able to go on working. I don’t know what my sister will do. She hasn’t asked for help; refused when I offered it. I suppose they have a bit of money.

  Suddenly, after years of complaining, she tells me what a gentle, inoffensive and kind man he’s always been. I’m never surprised by what I hear. No more. He is long-suffering, that’s certainly so. And a simple soul. I’ve known him since I was twelve, and he’s something of a brother. I’m going to the hospital this evening to see him.

  Love from Y[our]D[arling]

  To Sondra Tschacbasov Bellow

  November 2, 1966 Chicago

  Dear Sondra:

  Thank you for your letter. In answering, I shall try to state the facts as I see them.

  Adam is, as you say, nine years old, not thirty. He is in a difficult position and it is inevitable that he should exaggerate and misrepresent. At the time when I am supposed to have told him that I would have no more children, he was no more than five or six. Is it really likely that I would say such a thing to a small boy? I find it odd that you should accept his every report without question. I did not, for instance, tell him that if he were older I would no longer bother to see him; I said that he was not yet of an age to choose between a visit with me and other social engagements.

  It is difficult to be always the jolly, uncritical paternal chum. When I think he is going wrong, now and then, I feel that I must correct him. I never do this harshly or angrily. There are certain masculine attitudes the kid can get only from his father. Though he is a gentle, marvelous little boy, he occasionally gives me the Little Prince bit. Generally, I let it pass. This time it was a bit much. It is not for Adam to tell me that he does not wish to continue a discussion.

  As for his manners, they are unusually good; they do you credit. But he is beginning to imitate the tone you take with me when I telephone. I don’t think he should be allowed to speak to me like that. It’s not good for him. The manners only make things worse.

  I don’t know whether you are aware that Adam is afraid of you. Your temper frightens him. I know that he tries to appease you. He loves you, and he is cowed. It is natural that I should try to strengthen and reassure him. Now and then I am obliged to speak to him about it. It is plain to the boy, besides, that you have no great regard for me. Strong mothers who hold fathers in contempt sometimes make homosexual sons. And I don’t think Adam can learn much from you about fathers. I hope you will not be offended by these statements of fact. I have no desire to quarrel. My only interest is Adam’s welfare, a topic I am not permitted to discuss with you. I understand that my ideas do not interest you much. You communicate with me in directives. There is no exchange of thoughts. You simply tell me what to do, you send messages by the boy, and you threaten me.

  Well, threats at this point are absurd. It is Adam who suffers from these hostilities. I suffer only as he suffers—except through him you haven’t much effect on me. The whole thing is a misfortune for him. Knowing how you dislike me, he gains your sympathy and tenderness by complaining about me. It can’t be doing him much good to play off one parent against the other. He should have friends, teachers, alternatives. He should be able to turn to someone else. A psychiatrist perhaps.

  If I didn’t love Adam, the circumstances are such that I would have cut out long ago. I do love the child, and he needs me. Why do I see him? you ask. Because I love him. By presenting the problem to me as my problem, the result of my misdeeds, you don’t help matters much. I am willing to discuss this, willing to listen, and willing to change.

  To Margaret Staats

  November 15, 1966 [Chicago]

  [ . . . ] I dressed Daniel and we breakfasted on bananas and toast. By 8:00 I was at work, and he wanted to watch me. In the doorway, smearing the door with jam.

  Was asked at noon to buy flowers. Funereal-feeling in my fur hat, and very pale. On the street asked myself why I was without you.

  One waits for the sun to shine in Chicago. If only it would! Then it shines, you wish it wouldn’t. From the inside, disappointed life seems to have sucked at the bricks. That must be why they look so porous in the light, popping with little holes.

  Look east, and there’s the lake like cold-cream.

  I am low. And wouldn’t say such things if I didn’t love you and understand that you want to hear—even such things.

  Y. D.

  To a Mr. Gillman in London

  November 16, 1966 Chicago, Ill.

  Dear Mr. Gillman,
>
  It was indeed kind of you to write. The subject you raise is a vast one and I have no great confidence in my power to cope with it. It is true we have a large land mass here and a cultural situation unprecedented in its disorderliness. I cannot help thinking, however, that we are dealing with difficulties that are universal. I refer to the problem of rootlessness and to that of change. It is inevitable that as an Englishman you would see in Herzog the Jewish question. On the surface, it is a Jewish book, but the real theme is, to me, far deeper. Like you, I believe one should depend on mutual feelings, on love. But I don’t believe that love is a result of civilized roots. If one had to depend on those, injured as they are now or altogether cut off, one would have to wait a very long time.

  Yours sincerely,

  To Margaret Staats

  November 28, 1966 [Chicago]

  [ . . . ] My pleasure in life—to think about you. The white valentine. Face when making love. Hair when hands are raised to comb it. Teeth, lips, eyes, all music for my metronome.

  I have enormous good luck!

  Y.D.

  In early December, Bellow and wife Susan formally separated.

  1967

  To Margaret Staats

  January 11, 1967 [Chicago]

  Your pinch-earmuffs were useful this freezing day. What is that Eliot line in “Journey of the Magi”? “A cold coming we had of it.” Well! It’s all cold and no coming. Like another poet’s fellow, Samson Agonistes, I’m grinding the Philistines’ corn. Don’t mind the complaining—these aren’t deep complaints and they seem to relieve me. I’m waiting for the current to light my poor bulb. [ . . . ]

  Much love,

  Y.D.

  To Barley Alison

  January 24, 1967 Chicago

  Dear Barley:

  My meeting with George [Weidenfeld] went off pleasantly and that is very odd because I was vexed with him and came prepared to say no. I shan’t say that he wooed and won me, because that’s a feminine and inapplicable phrase, but his proposal was too good to refuse. I say this objectively, with the objectivity of prudence, not of greed. He promised a first printing of forty thousand copies for my next book and a uniform edition of all the others. It was awkward because I do rather like [Tom] Maschler [editor in chief at Jonathan Cape]. Actually I could not give George a final answer without telling Maschler the terms of the offer, just as I could not quit George without a final meeting. But I have written Maschler—I tell you this privately; it is a privileged communication—to say that it would be insane of me to turn down George’s proposal. I am now waiting to hear from him.

  George and I discussed you, of course. It was made quite clear that I would not have stayed with W[eidenfeld] and N[icolson] had you not been there. You may be sure that I betrayed no confidence. George knows nothing of our conversations. I told him that you should have had more influence in the business, and he told me how valuable you were to him. In this I think he was only partly smarmy, for he does value you highly (I am trying to imagine the cavern in which his values are stored). But he did not repeat what you had said in your letter about the three directors of the subsidiary company, and all of that. He said only that he planned to put you at the head of a separate organization. I earnestly hope that you will not let George snow you and that you will consult your family and your lawyers before you go into this.

  So there it is. I shall probably be staying with W[eidenfeld] and N[icholson] and, better yet, with you. This last pleases me more than all the rest. I can assure you that the prospect of injuring you by going to Cape did not make me at all happy.

  Yours affectionately,

  Barley Alison was for many years Bellow’s British editor.

  To Barley Alison

  May 18, 1967 Chicago

  Dear Barley,

  Your letter is haunting me with Utopian visions. I want very much to come [to Almería, Spain, where Barley had a vacation residence], of course, but I don’t know yet whether I can manage it. During the summer I usually have numerous child problems. One of my sons is quite a young man and presents no problems, but the others are still much in need of Papa, and I am, with all my faults, a responsible papa. Still, I may be able to get away for a few weeks. Actually, I’d like nothing in the world better.

  People who met you in New York said afterwards that they could easily understand why I have become your partisan and defender. You charmed everyone and I think you ought to have come to New York long ago. You remind me a bit of Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, watching the lights of Christ-minster from his tiny hamlet while the years went by. You must come back often now.

  You’re sure to have a marvelous summer in that place. If I should turn up, which is not very likely, I shall come alone and curl up in a corner.

  Yours affectionately,

  To Margaret Staats

  June 7, 1967 Athens

  When we landed in Rome Monday officials came on board to tell us the war [in the Middle East] had started and that our flight would stop in Athens. Somewhat stunned, I wasn’t totally disappointed. Feel a bit scared at the sound of bombs and guns blasting from the radio. But had to go forward and spent Mon. and Tues. fighting for a seat on the plane. I’m going tonight (Thurs. A.M.) and should be in Tel Aviv this hour tomorrow. Couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. At US Embassy just now I had my passport validated for the Middle East, signing various documents. It puts one in touch with reality. Otherwise one’s decades begin to feel empty like an old amusement park no longer patronized and oneself the caretaker remembering childhood, boyhood-youth as side shows (the fire-eater, the strong man, tunnel-of-love, etc.). This is much better. Though I do love you and my little children and a few other people—but this is all movie-talk! I’ll be back on sched. for our holiday. I’ll keep in close touch. Please don’t bug Newsday about me. And don’t worry so. After all, millions of lives are involved.

  Love from Y. D.

  On June 3, Bellow had flown from the US to report for Newsday on the crisis that would lead to the Six-Day War in the Middle East.

  To Margaret Staats

  June 10, 1967 Tel Aviv

  This bloody thing is simply not to be believed. I ask myself how it would look from News York, but then I can’t even say how it looks from here. From the slick Hilton to the battlefields to the Kremlin, etc.—or standing around in an elegant jacket watching armored columns shooting it out, or children being brought up from bomb shelters where parents have kept them for four days under shelling. I don’t find it easy to match the pieces. I’m safe and well, and get along perfectly on three hours of sleep. Or none. I found I could wait up all night for a plane, never go to bed at all for forty-eight hours, and feel no fatigue. Only, sometimes, depressed. Today I was up at 4:00 A.M. At 1:00 P.M. I remembered it was my birthday.

  Now it’s 10:00 at night. I face a large bed which would look far better if it contained you. Write Y loving D here.

  To Rosalyn Tureck

  September 21, 1967 Chicago

  Dear Rosalyn,

  Wonderful of you to write. Yours was just the sort of letter I needed at a trying moment. As an admirer of your music, I don’t like to miss your concert. The odd fact is, however, that I have at last decided to visit Africa and have accepted an assignment from Holiday to go and hover over the sources of the Nile in a helicopter and to write impressions or effusions. I leave just before Thanksgiving and return after Christmas, which lets me out of a couple of trying holidays, but makes it impossible for me to hear you, alas. We shall keep in touch, I hope, and see a good deal of each other yet.

  Best wishes,

  A classmate of Bellow’s at Tuley, Rosalyn Tureck (1914-2003) was an internationally acclaimed interpreter of Bach on piano and harpsichord. (Glenn Gould would name her as his only influence.)

  To Benjamin Nelson

  October 13, 1967 Chicago

  Dear Ben,

  You are absolutely right about Brecht and [Eric] Bentley, but I tremble for you or for anyone who is sucked into t
hese theatre quarrels. A most unstable and undesirable crowd; they have inherited all the charlatan traditions of theatre and lost contact with all the good things. Of course it can be argued that no playwright has any obligations to historical truth, though if he is writing for a modern, critical and intelligent audience (if such there be), he had better not offend too grossly.

  How true to the facts was Marat-Sade? Only last night I read in Encounter a letter from Leo Labedz on the new [Rolf] Hochhuth play [Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva] having to do with Churchill’s crimes against the Poles in exile. Churchill is accused of murder, no less, and Hochhuth says he has years of study behind the charge. I doubt that very much and Labedz is furious. I suppose this puts Hochhuth’s play in the cold-war propaganda category, and I assume that it’s propaganda you oppose and not the disfigurement of facts by a creative person.

  Could you send me a copy of the speech you gave in California? I want very much to read it.

  Yours affectionately,

  Benjamin N. Nelson (1911-77) taught history and sociology at the University of Minnesota, where he met Bellow, and later at the New School for Social Research. His books include Freud and the Twentieth Century (1957) and a posthumous collection of essays, On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science, and Civilizations (1981).